Let's see, massive political will in Ukraine, a population that hates the US, and gladly flexing military muscle/arms dealing in all sorts of opposition to us. Also, a very despicably clever leader, ex-CIA operative, and someone who can actually tell you not only what the US Nuclear Triad is, but can probably name the current classes of US boomer subs.

that man, versus ... Trump.

Hahahahaha. Yeah. A popularity contest beauty queen, versus an old guard soviet shit kicker who orders hits on his own people to keep his population in line. No contest. I bet on Putin.

The administration Hillary would have had would have been lightyears ahead of this ineptitude. Thank god for Mattis.

When Trump gives the order to get out there and bust some heads, it will be too late for CNN to report it.
If you fuckers think you can use malfeasance to oust Trump without him going down as Graciously as President Obama went out.
You fuckers are sorely mistaken.
Our riot will have the Army and Police on the protestors line.

How in the hell can you call Putin a hero and the NSA an evil police state for doing exactly the same act?

I called Putin a hero - unqualified?

IF it was the NSA, and not former Obama officials mad at Flynn and determined to pee in his soup as 'revenge', how do you control the NSA once they have all the shit on everybody, all their calls, emails, texts, credit card charges, etc. and have shown their willingness to defame the President and his cabinet? That's how Hoover got away with so much shit and couldn't be removed except for Death.

An activist group whose leader is encircled inside the Embassy of Ecuador who depends on leaks from whistleblowers, is a whole different kettle of fish from Deep State Bureaucrats looking to defend their Pet Policies by any means necessary, including by leaking information on phone calls made by citizens. Or simply to get revenge on a "Traitor" like Flynn who insisted on calling Islam a dangerous ideology and went on television giving his version of the MENA strategy and criticizing his former boss Obama's handling of it.

Now I know why morale was in the toilet in the USAF in Turkey around 2014.

IF it was the NSA. It was probably ex-Obama Officials who were informed by intel agencies between Dec. 29th and Election Day as part of their regular briefings.

Also, incoming elected administrations talking to foreign leaders is normal and boring. What did Flynn do that was so horrible? He asked Russia not to react on the Sanctions. In other words, something undeniably good for the USA - unless you are such a Russophobic extremists you want the counter-sanctions to wave as a bloody shirt of martyrdom against your domestic foes.

It's a concept written about in 1984 and widely considered to be unspeakably evil. It means you don't care about the crime, you only care about what's in a person's head.

What you are detailing is thought crime while you're trying to bury the actual act as inconsequential. The two actions were identical. One was unauthorized hacking of Democrats and one was (supposedly) unauthorized hacking of Republicans. One was a foreign government attempting to attain some level of control over our election and one was our domestic government trying to uncover foreign corruption.

What you're doing enables fascists. It gives them power. You are throwing out the rule of law in favor of a moral authority which you are not entitled to.

BTW did you read the OP? It's not just Flynn anymore. It's others and very possibly Trump himself. Down the rabbit hole we go.

Some in intelligence community now saying that US allies are brining us interesting revelations on Trump and his cabinet members too. I'll bet that's the UK. The book that will be written on this one day is going to be amazing.

(Russia and China high-fiving in the corner, rushing to get crap done, while the West feuds.)

It's a concept written about in 1984 and widely considered to be unspeakably evil. It means you don't care about the crime, you only care about what's in a person's head.

Therefore Intent means nothing? In some places in the world, they don't draw a distinction between losing control of your car, and deliberately running down somebody on purpose.iwog says

What you are detailing is thought crime while you're trying to bury the actual act as inconsequential. The two actions were identical. One was unauthorized hacking of Democrats and one was (supposedly) unauthorized hacking of Republicans. One was a foreign government attempting to attain some level of control over our election and one was our domestic government trying to uncover foreign corruption.

What is the factual evidence (not conclusions based on a tendentious assembly of coulda, woulda, shoulda assembled by a DNC Contractor, Crowdstrike) it was a foreign government? Why hasn't the DNC turned over their servers to the FBI so they can bring in a huge range of professions and contractors to help identify the hack source?

Wikileaks has dumped tons of documents from Assad's Regime, the Syria Files, showing all the nasty shit he did to stay in power. Why would Russia want that out?

What you're doing enables fascists. It gives them power. You are throwing out the rule of law in favor of a moral authority which you are not entitled to.

What you're doing is enabling a police state, by failing to draw a distinction between political assassination and sabotage by unelected bureaucrats, and political activists engaging in attempts to shed sunlight and bring transparency.

Right here in the US we look at intent. If you shoot a burglar, it's unlikely you'll be charged, much less go to trial. If you shoot somebody because you don't like their opinions, after planning the best way to do it, you probably will.

BTW, it's a testament to the power of lockstep Billionaire Concentrated Media and their framing of stories that people think the FBI itself concluded the DNC was hacked by Russia. They only read over the Crowdstrike Report and were never allowed by the DNC to look at the Server

"The burden of proving the claim is on the claimant. Why the claimant won't turn their servers over to the official US authorities most interested in defending US organizations against electronic infiltration and hacking is purely political."

Straw man. Did you forget we aren't talking about a crime? Well in the case of Putin it was a crime but the NSA didn't commit a crime. The ethics of legality is certainly open to debate however there's no indication he broke the law. Furthermore I could easily argue that the gross incompetence of your candidate combined with open advocation of pursuing unconstitutional policies (banning all Muslims) during the election made it a concern of national security that Donald Trump be watched.

In some places in the world, they don't draw a distinction between losing control of your car, and deliberately running down somebody on purpose

That's odd because in both cases the intent was to expose corruption. In the case of Clinton, it wasn't illegal corruption, it was simply an unpopular function within the party. In the case of Donald Trump however it might very well be treason.

1. He had an understanding ( how much and how is yet to be determined but this is not speculation any more) with Putin, that in return of Putin helping Trump win the election, he will help (quid pro quo) Russia after the election .

2. So Putin went and hacked the DNC and RNC emails and only release DNC harmful emails ( already established)

3. Trump is trying to paint Putin in a favorable light and trying to get the sanctions reversed ( Obvious) . A quid pro quo.

So this is analogous to hiring a hit man , so in this analogy why is Trump not guilty of murder.

What do you think of just rejecting posts that are overwhelmingly ad hom.

Yes, still working this out. Needs to be pretty tolerant, just weeding out the clear personal attacks.

Also going to keep all those comments around so people can see them if they want.

@patrick why don't you let the user's decide what they want to see rather than all this dicking around with comments. Put a field in the profile called suppress flagged comments or something. If someone doesn't want to see the flagged AH comments then dont' show them. People who don't care (I certainly don't care, bring it on) can see everything that is posted. New users and anyone not logged in would default to girlie girl status and would have to step up to the plate to opt into man up status. Current users would have everything (so everyone doesn't have to change their profile) and would opt out if they want to. Makes the whole thing more or less self moderating without someone being the comment police.

patrick why don't you let the user's decide what they want to see rather than all this dicking around with comments. Put a field in the profile called suppress flagged comments or something. If someone doesn't want to see the flagged AH comments then dont' show them. People who don't care (I certainly don't care, bring it on) can see everything that is posted. New users and anyone not logged in would default to girlie girl status and would have to step up to the plate to opt into man up status. Current users would have everything (so everyone doesn't have to change their profile) and would opt out if they want to. Makes the whole thing more or less self moderating without someone being the comment police.

Two reasons:

1. It would interrupt the flow of conversation to have some comments be invisible.
2. People are just going to flag each other's comments all the time if no one is moderating.

I'd much rather have a place for insults: the thunderdome threads. Why should it be so hard to attack points and not other users? I guess it is, but not sure why.

Going to make it very transparent, hopefully today, so there will be a list of all deleted comments and everyone can see what's in there if they want.

Maybe I could even put in "ad hominem comment banished to graveyard" and have a link to that in the thread. That would create a little cost to seeing the ad hom comment, which is prolly good.